Award-wining author Jacqueline Woodson’s Brown Girl Dreaming may have been published for middle and young adult readers, but this is a book for every reader,
Slade House It’s not often that I review a book two months before its publication, but because David Mitchell is one of my favorite novelists
Gutenberg’s Apprentice While it is difficult to overemphasize the importance of moveable type and Gutenberg’s impact on the creation of the modern world, letterpress printing
MURDER ON THE QUAI Since Murder on the Quai is the sixteenth Aimee Leduc mystery, a series I have not been following, I was a
MUDBOUND Hillary Jordan’s novel, Mudbound, carries the reader back to a 1940s Mississippi rife with hatred, prejudice, and bigotry. Since the first chapter opens with
MANY RESTLESS CONCERNS: THE VICTIMS OF THE COUNTESSS BÁTHORY SPEAK IN CHORUS Gayle Brandeis’ Many Restless Concerns: The Victims of Countess Báthory Speak in Chorus
SPEAK NO EVIL Uzodinma Iweala’s Speak No Evil left me not only speechless but breathless, too. It’s not often I encounter such a novel. Speak
The Clockwork Crow, first in a new series by Catherine Fisher. I feel on pretty sure ground when reviewing children’s picture books, but lacking a
Begin Again: James Baldwin’s America and Its Urgent Lessons for Our Own. Baldwin and Glaude, rereading Baldwin to arrive at Glaude’s writing and thinking today.
Windy City Blues. Polish brothers, Black musicians and entertainers, and a record company you won’t soon forget. Rosen’s novel has it all. Renée Rosen seamlessly
The Vanishing Half – Brit Bennett’s novel is more than its dustjacket suggests. It is probing, profound, and provocative, and not only about the subject
The power of a good picture book is a wondrous thing, especially those pictures books that bring historical figures to life. Author Alan Schroeder and
It’s something of a cliché for a reviewer to warn readers of an especially challenging work that “This is not for everyone;” but sometimes—like now—it’s
Hang on folks, here comes the best read I’ve had this year. Carolyn Wall, an Oklahoma resident who has taught creative writing to children and
Reading the book cover, I learned I would be following in the footsteps of Gabriella Mondini, and I assumed I would be tracing a map
Reading a good poem is like having an intimate conversation. It engages us in moments of rare beauty, and it doesn’t mask truths that are
Since 2011, the very best in reviewing – connecting good readers with equally good writers
